Dishwashers are a common convenience appliance in many households. A user simply loads the dishwasher with dishes, utensils, and other wares to be cleaned into a wash chamber, along with an optional supply of a wash aid, such as a detergent, pre-wash detergent, rinse aid, bleach, etc., and selects and initiates a cleaning cycle that is subsequently automatically carried out by the dishwasher. An example of a typical cleaning cycle includes the steps of washing the wares with heated liquid and optional wash aid and rinsing the wares with heated liquid.
Dishwashers are often provided with a dispenser for automatically dispensing one or more wash aids at an appropriate time during a cleaning cycle. The wash aid mixes with fluid, such as water, to produce a cleaning fluid for circulation through the wash chamber. One common type of dispenser is the manual or single use dispenser, which can be filled with only enough wash aid for a single cleaning cycle. These single use dispensers are to be filled with wash aid by a user prior to each cleaning cycle of the dishwasher, which is a tedious task that many users would prefer not to perform. Also, users may provide too much or too little wash aid for the given cycle, which may negatively impact the cleaning result. Bulk dispensing is one solution that improves the ease of supplying wash aid to the dishwasher for the user. However, there are many limitations to today's bulk dispensers, including the lack of user-control over the amount of wash aid dispensed and the inability for users to still selectively use a single use dispenser.